His Highness Shaikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman, Emirates NBD today announced the successful launch of the bank’s pilot blockchain network for banking services, a first for a private sector entity in the UAE.

The bank, a front-runner in digital banking solutions and a member of Dubai Future Foundation’s Global Blockchain Council, successfully completed a proof of concept blockchain network for international remittances and open account trade finance, in partnership with ICICI Bank Limited, India’s largest private sector bank by consolidated assets and Infosys Finacle.

Reiterating the bank’s commitment to support the Dubai’s Smart City vision articulated by His Highness Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai and the Dubai Blockchain Strategy launched recently by His Highness Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince, H.H. Sheikh Ahmed announced that the bank is currently engaged with trialing blockchain technology across multiple banking and payment services. The use case scenarios range from customer-facing and government transactions to internal systems to harness blockchain’s exceptional potential to simplify, secure and automate business processes.

Commenting on the first successful pilot project, His Highness Shaikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman, Emirates NBD said, “Our pilot project, a first for the banking sector in the UAE, demonstrates blockchain’s immense potential to change how organisations and governments conduct business. We look forward to further collaboration with the public sector and our private peers to further adoption of this technology in the UAE.”

“We anticipate blockchain to be a potential game changer in creating a secure, scalable, cost and time-efficient digital ecosystem for government and businesses and as a bank that has pioneered digital innovation in banking and payments in the UAE, we are truly excited to take the lead in testing future applications of this exciting technology in the banking sector.”

The pilot project was undertaken by Emirates NBD Future Lab™, the bank’s innovation-driven platform that seeks to partner with fintech innovators and like-minded institutions to create pioneering banking and payment solutions. The pilot blockchain network project demonstrated how banks can significantly reduce transaction costs and time. The trade finance purchase order and invoice financing cycle tests conducted showed a near real-time transfer of invoices and purchase orders in a transparent and secure manner. The blockchain network was integrated with the Infosys Finacle core banking and other host systems within the pilot technology environments on both banks and was designed to be least disruptive to existing systems and processes, allowing the banks to seamlessly plug in their systems and process to work with blockchain technology.

The pilot project was executed using an Infosys solution, EdgeVerve Blockchain Framework, a permissioned ledger designed specifically for the banking sector that can scale up to experiment several business use cases. Blockchain-based applications built on the framework, can deliver increased efficiencies, transactional security and accuracy at a lower cost.